FORT WORTH STAR LETTERS: "The powers-that-be misled us. They lied in the past, they're lying now, and they'll continue to lie."

Private toll roads are an excuse for the Texas Department of Transportation and other entities to accept up-front corporate money to spend on other projects. It's not about relieving congestion.

It's a disturbing way to fund other road projects. Then the taxpaying public gets saddled with excessive tolls and hidden fees for the duration of a 50-year contract.

Has anyone in power ever stopped to think that we 'little people' in the Metroplex don't want every new and old road to be a stinking toll road? We don't want to drive around with cameras pointed at our faces and receive 10 bills from 10 different toll companies with 10 different charges.

I attended a March 1 state Senate hearing on transportation and toll roads. Yes, I was part of what a local newspaper called a 'howling mob.'

Guess why Texans are howling? We're sick and tired of being taxed, tolled and gouged to death by state agencies, the private sector, public utilities, and insurance and drug companies.

How arrogant are Dallas-Fort Worth political and business leaders, our local newspapers and the normally compassionate columnists to want Texas voters/taxpayers/the driving public to run along, shut up and get with the program without question or review? We see and understand what's going on.

Linda Lancaster, Arlington

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